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// A Case of Good Humor 
// Story: Joker's Wild 
// by Damaged 
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The memory of my first time frozen by the poison joke made my smile grow. To most, poison joke was a terrible weed that was to be avoided or destroyed. To me, it gave me freedom and the life I always wanted. 

Closing my eyes to the glow of the joke, I thought about that first day back in civilization.  The ponies hadn't treated me like baggage that is only unpacked for special occasions, they also didn't send me away. "Tomorrow." I looked down at the bowl Scruff was chasing around the floor with his snout. "I think it's gone, buddy." The bright blue glow of my magic levitated the bowl up, and the adorable sight of Scruff trying to lick it more make me giggle.

I washed the bowl, then set about preparing to wash myself. Topping a big pot up with water, I set it on the stove and searched for my tin tub. "It's been a while Scruff, where did I put the bath?" Though it didn't get my pet "dog" searching for the tub with me, uttering the hated word did scare the timber wolf into running clean out of the house and into the night.

With more room, I spotted the tub and lifted it down. Filling the tub was much slower than the pot, but it gave the water on the stove time to heat. With the tub almost half full, I reached a hoof in and swished it around the glacial water and sighed. Water always felt good, ever since that day. Some ponies might run and hide from the rain, but I often found myself just standing still, looking up at the sky with my eyes wide open. 

The sound of boiling water pulled me from my contemplation. I turned to the pot and lifted it from the stove in my magic, and poured it into the tub. Frosty water met blistering, and they combined into a warm bath that wouldn't boil me alive. Climbing into the tub, I settled my legs into the water and folded them under me. I groaned in delight, and my muscles lost their knots one by one to relaxation and heat. Sinking as low as I could, the water was just shy of covering my spine.

I closed my eyes, not needing to look to know which cupboard my bathing accouterments were in. Bath salts were first, muscle-relaxing minerals that would bring me down from the long journey even further. I next dumped in some of the special soap that was a small concession to luxury. My mane and tail shampoo was set to one side, but I levitated my scrubbing brush up without hesitation.

The problem with traveling long distances and rough-housing with ponies who cared little for personal hygiene was that their less desirable level of cleanliness rubbed off, literally. Road dirt, along with all the smells of each place I had been in search of this latest treasure. That had been quite the find, and would be an important part of my week now. 





Visitors weren't very common—normally I only got either a regular mailmare, or customers—but today somepony who was neither was flying along the path from Ponyville. She looked like a homely mare, gray mane and tail, and a light gold fur told me little about her, but when she landed at the front door and I caught sight of her cutie mark—a compass rose—I knew it was my pen-pal. 

"Hi there, welcome to Jokers Wild." My voice seemed to change in steps, and today it was between octaves, making me sound like a colt on the verge of gaining his deeper, stallion voice. "How may I help the distinguished writer, A. K. Yearling? Or are we going by Daring Do today?"

"Oh come on, I am that recognizable?" My friend rolled her eyes. "What gave me away?" She strode forward and lifted a hoof, getting a reply from me in kind.

"You were flying." I gestured out the window, pointing to the sky. "As far as most of Equestria is concerned, A. K. Yearling is an earth pony. I don't know why, of course, it would be like me trying to not be a joker. Would you like some tea?"

"Tea would be nice, but the reason I was flying is that this is urgent. There is a tribe in southern Maretonia who worship a crazy plant. I didn't do so good at making friends with the tribe, but the plant seemed friendly… Too friendly by far!" Daring blushed, and I got the idea it had been quite the intense "friendship."

"So why urgent?" Despite my questions, I was already using my magic to pluck up a backpack, stuffing things into it I thought might be useful: trimming shears, machete, some packets of herbs I knew would calm an overly active plant, and others that did the opposite.

Daring sighed. "Caballeron." The name was known to me mostly from Daring's writing. "There was a reward posted for the artifact shortly after I left to find it, apparently. He didn't catch up to me before… before I ran into some trouble, but he will have a head-start now, and despite being unscrupulous, he is competent."

"Right. So some sort of crazy plant in the way…" My brain mused on the thought as I packed some rope and other gear for "adventuring," but as I was slipping in my magical unfolding stasis tank—for specimens, of course—I had a revelation. "Wait a second. You said the locals revere the plant as a god?" Daring nodded. "And it is stopping you from getting into some place where something shiny is?" Another nod. One. Two. Three. Four. Five… I was calm. "How big is this plant?"

"Well…" Daring trailed off, her eyes darting to the side. "You remember Daring Do and the Cursed Onyx?" It was my turn to nod. "The plant that—"

"That had overgrown the temple in vines and pods, animus grabbus. That was the book that made me contact you, remember?" I finished packing my essentials, and then grabbed another two packets of the calming agent. "What does this one do?"

"Not… not as such…" Daring trailed off.





I stared at the "ceremony" going on in the dawn light. My bright blue eyes ignored the wrath of Celestia's sun—right behind the temple from our position—but Daring was having to shade her eyes with a hoof. I watched as nubile young mares, decked in beads and gold, walked into the mass of vines with beatific expressions—expressions that soon turned to shock. The mares' sudden lapses into convulsions looked worrying.

We were hidden in the jungle just out from the foot of the temple, and we knew we weren't alone. Somewhere in the forest around the temple Dr. Caballeron also waited. 

"So what do we do?" I turned to look at Daring, needing no change to my vision except to refocus on my friend. "Are we going to go charging in and join them?"

Daring Do's blush told me everything I needed to know, that she hadn't told me already. "N-No!" Daring's exclamation almost gave us away, so we both huddled a little lower to hide. "No. I… I don't want to go through that again. I need you to neutralize the plant just there." She pointed at the temple.

I leaned in against Daring's shoulder and sighted along her foreleg. "That is some of the thickest part of it!"

"It's the only place the natives don't go. There are some huge pods in there too." Daring adjusted her hoof to guide my sight to them. "Come on Joker, you are the best at this. I wouldn't come to you if you weren't."

Pride. It was a tool to some, a weakness to others. "Daring, look at what the plant is doing to those mares." 

"I would rather not." Daring cut in before I could continue, almost derailing my thoughts.

I waved a hoof. "We are not going anywhere near that!"





Lifting the little blow-gun to my lips, I puffed on it again. Another tiny dart flew towards its target. No sooner did the yellow-stained tip of my dart sink into the plant's vine than it stilled. "You are getting the bill for all this. I am going to be completely out of snoozus dreamus powder at this rate."

I dipped another sharp-tipped dart in the goo I mixed up from the snoozus powder and loaded it into the gun. Stepping carefully over any vines that were asleep, the two of us neared the spot where Daring needed to get in.

"These pod things…" Daring lifted a hoof and reached up to touch one. I was about to shout a warning to her, but it was not needed.

"Do not touch that. Their pods release a cloud of dust that I have heard will have you in a state like those mares." Caballeron's voice was smooth as silk, and the stallion was cut from the same sort of cloth. Unshaven, but stylishly so, he was standing right behind us with a group of five big goons. "Daring Do, who is this delightful creature you have brought with you?"

I couldn't help the blush that hit my cheeks. Being a rather liberal stallion, at least at heart, I could certainly recognize Caballeron was handsome, but he had a genome that I didn't find attractive. "Joker. And don't look at me like that."

"My dear filly, I will look as I please." His tone would have been warm honey to a mare, but it was closer to a horn on a chalkboard to me. "Now, clear the way and I will pay you what Daring promised."

"Two thousand bits." It was the first thing that came to mind, and probably a lot more than I was going to get. I shrugged at the gasp from Daring. "What? You expected me to get captured. I am a businesspony, you contracted me to do a job. Now, you don't seem able to pay, so I guess I will find a contract of opportunity."

Daring's voice was full of scorn. "You are the worst, Joker."

I raised an eyebrow. "You aren't going to kill her, are you?"

"Daring Do? Of course not. That would be against the law." Caballeron drew a bag of bits from his jacket and tossed it to me. "That is half. Half when we get out."

"Oh, oh no!" My voice wavered. "And look at that, I am all out of plant sleepy-sleepy… If I had another half now I might have some more…" I looked at Caballeron with a half smile. The game was on, and if I were to ever betray a friend it would only be for a lot of bits.

"Ah, you really are a professional. Very well." Caballeron tossed me another bag.

Stowing the second bag, I started moving forward again. The first vine that snaked out towards me got a dart in it. I began mixing more of the stuff up, but I made sure nopony saw me change the mixture. "This is a bit silly. Daring was going forward so I could put anything that grabbed her to sleep. If I am going in front, and get grabbed, nopony can help you reach your destination…"

Caballeron stared into my eyes for a few moments, and I hated seeing admiration in his gaze. "Heavy, Thick, up front." 

Having cleared most of the vines, the two point-ponies were unmolested all the way to the entry Daring had chosen. The trip through the temple was simple, not a single trap… that Daring didn't disarm. She was forced in front, made to deal with everything.

The statue was just as gorgeous as anypony would hope, and I could see why Daring wanted it out of the hooves of anypony seeking to keep it hidden. The way back to the surface was predictable, and not a trap remained to catch us. 

Outside, the vines were starting to squirm groggily, the sleeping mix I used starting to wear off. "Okay, this isn't good." I looked right at Caballeron. "We run, okay?" He looked startled. "I mean it. I don't have enough of this stuff to get us out, and if it wakes up too much we won't make it out of here un… caught." I finished a little lamely.

"I must say, Miss Joker, I have met a lot of ponies, and could read each of them like a book." The charming stallion's mouth curved into a smile. "But I cannot read you." A moment passed, then another. If he was hoping to sweat the truth from anyone, a pony who spent up to three months a year motionless was not a good target. I looked back at him levelly. "Very well. Make sure the prize is lashed down well…" Once the assigned task was done, Caballeron laughed. "We run!"

I was right, of course. I didn't lie to a stallion who could pick a lie. I was completely out of the calming dust, so there wasn't enough to get out. The dozy vines wouldn't have been quick enough to catch us, as we ran. My blue magic floated my dart gun up, and I gave a puff.

Caballeron turned his head as the dart slammed into the dust-pod beside him. "Oh dar—" He didn't finish. The powder I had loaded the tip of the dart with surged through that clump of vines, and suddenly they were everywhere.

"How does this help?" Daring gestured forward with a hoof while I was unbinding her wings. "Now the statue is in the mass of… I can't watch this." She turned to look away as Caballeron and his cronies were caught by the vines.

"Simple. The drug I used will supercharge a plant's metabolism, for nearly ten minutes. After that, boom, out like a light!" I clopped my forehooves together. "So you grab the stuff and fly away. But my fee doubled."

"What? But Caballeron already paid you extra!" Daring was shielding her eyes from the already convulsing stallions. "Why do you need extra?"

"Because I can't fly. I have to walk through that, and I won't make it." My sigh that followed would have won an acting award. "I'll try to toss it back to you." I shucked off my saddlebags and stepped forward. 

Vines found me quickly, coiled around my limbs and restrained me. It wasn't anything near as efficient—or magical—as poison joke, but it was passable. "Those mares mustn't have been told about this stuff." I grinned wide, chuckling a little. "They all looked so… so surprised." I giggled now, and charged my horn with magic. As the vines started to work on me, I grabbed the statue and heaved it back and through the air to where Daring was trying to avert her eyes. I saw her blush as my laughter increased.

The vines ran over the frogs of my feet, tickling and made me twitch. But it was when a flower-bearing vine reached up and puffed their dust in my face that I lost control. Peals of laughter rang from my throat, as "the giggle vine"—as it was known—started soaking up the happy feelings like the emotivore that it was. 

Laughing and laughing, I couldn't get away from the dust, from the ticklish places the vines found, or from my own sense of humor.





"I just really don't like laughing like that." Daring Do walked beside me. She carried the statue while I carried my pack and my sample. "Losing control like that… I can't believe you are going to grow it!"

"Well, it was a great way to let off a little steam. I haven't laughed like that for…" I trailed off, pondering. "Forever. This, I think, will be quite a good payment." I heard Daring's sigh of relief. "But don't go thinking it will be my only payment. You told me, remember, how much you make from royalties."

Daring's reply was not suitable for T rated stories.